Shays' Rebellion
Since the rest of the world probably isn't as obsessed with the Phils 23-run, two-day outburst in St. Louis this weekend, I'm a bit surprised that the remarks of Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) haven't gotten more attention. Shays, a moderate Republican in a heavily Democratic district, called this weekend for our pal Tom DeLay to resign his leadership post in the House of Representatives after earlier asserting that he would never vote for DeLay as Speaker of the House.

I've written earlier about how the DeLay Affair is emblematic of a larger split within the Republican coalition, and it's hardly surprising that Shays--the Republican House champion of campaign finance reform, and an outspoken opponent of the trend toward theocracy in the Republican Party--comes down on the other side from DeLay. And Shays is no dummy: he barely survived a strong Democratic challenge in his re-election bid last fall, and knows that as a New England Republican he stands athwart the long-term trend of his state and region toward deep Blue political allegience. (TAPPED and others have noted that Shays' rejection of DeLay somewhat smacks of "doth protest too much" in light of previous, more favorable comments he's made about the pride of the Texas bug-killing industry.)

This may be so, but I'm kind of a Chris Shays fan, mostly for the reasons noted above. He's pretty much what I think a Republican should be: a true fiscal conservative enamored of balanced budgets, somewhat distrustful of both political elites (as demonstrated by his support for campaign finance reform) and the enraged masses (hence his complaints about "the party of theocracy"). He's no Democrat; I'm pretty sure he's anti-choice, and his support for Social Security privatization shows that on a lot of economics issues he's probably little better than DeLay. What I most like about him, as with his Senate counterpart John McCain, is that he seems to believe that given a level political playing field, democracy will work as it should. That's his biggest contrast with DeLay, whose disinterest in a level political playing field is the defining characteristic of his career in public life.

Will the Shays Rebellion turn into a full-fledged Revolution? I doubt it, but I'm hoping. As every left-leaning site in the blogosphere has noted, the institutional power base of the right-wing coalition has rallied 'round DeLay. Having no factual case to stand on, they're trying to dismiss the constant pattern of corruption in his career as something ginned up by that all-purpose boogeyman George Soros--while at the same time suggesting that Democrats like Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton have committed as bad or worse ethical misdeeds. (Talk about "red state facts" and "blue state facts.")

DeLay has always been something of a useful embarrassment for the Republican establishment. His remaining supporters, by suggesting that they can brazen it out and politically argue way his transgressions, are demonstrating a lack of confidence in their own ideas. Shays, for all that I disagree with him on, is making a far more admirable case that political self-interest (both his, and his party's) and the broader notion of serving the public might yet have some overlap.